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Thursday, October 3, 2013

Let the War Games start : Video wars

Yesterday MB’s RSSD News Network began to post some series of videos online claiming that those clips are a scandal to General Abdel Fatah El Sisi and the army. The first video clip in the series was a very interesting. Its title was : “El Sisi : The military spokesperson is an important attraction factor for ladies” !! Oh yes

Adel Fatah El Sisi speaking about media and army.

RSSD claimed that that video was leaked secretly from a secret meeting exposing the coup. According to what the officers and generals wore winter military uniforms.
Now in that clip we find an officer called Col. Omar “He became famous in social networks” asking General Abdel Fatah El Sisi what he would do then when the media crossed the red lines the army enjoyed for past 50 years. Col. Omar adds that there are TV channels speaking about the army , their owners should be intimidated or encouraged to cooperate with the army and not to cross those holy red lines when speaking about the army. He also asked about the Egyptian armed forces spokesperson Col. Ahmed Mohamed Ali. The General answered some how wisely if I may say. He said that the revolution dismantled the state and was reassembling it which is true. He also said that they were trying to outreach to the media in different ways and that in the future the red lines may change especially now the army can be questioned in the parliament unlike the past.
El Sisi’s answer when it comes to parliament shows why the army is really concerned by the parliament and accountability. That answer also shows that at least as a commander who comes from an intelligence background El Sisi knows very very well that something has changed.
As a society that loves trivia all people focused on El Sisi and what he said about Col. Ahmed Mohamed Ali “Omar , Ahmed has an attraction factor for the ladies !!”
I do not know about you but his answer was actually insulting to be both Egyptian women “who are

Col. Ali

fascinated by how handsome the colonel is as if they are so shallow” and insulting to Ahmed Ali himself as an army officer working in a first degree masculine institution. I believe it is even bad for him as it came form his commander in this way !! I do not deny that he got groupies online ,still it is insulting to judge a man based on his looks online and how to use the looks in the army to gain support !!
By the way in another world I think this video is a gold mine for Bassem Youssef !! Seriously speaking “ Omar who wants to intimidate the media and Col. Ahmed is very attractive to the ladies” !! Needless to say I am dreaming as Youssef dares not really to cross the red line.
Of course Al Jazeera Musbhar Misr could not miss the opportunity and is airing the clip with photos of Col. Ahmed Ali with ladies aka his groupies from Ramdan Iftar and Sohoor parties held by private TV channels day and night. “Really silly photos”
Back to the media’s point; in real world the army does not need to lure the TV channels and media tycoons to its side because in the end they are the old Mubarak regime faces and tycoons. For God sake the military now controls the media whether directly or indirectly.
Other than that “Omar he is attractive” , the video does not incriminate El Sisi that much especially he knew that the world was changing. If the video was incriminating anyone it would be colonel Omar , the perfect example of a military man with an old mindset who refuses accountability and believes in freaking red lines. Needless to say the victim of the clip is Ahmed Ali considering all the jokes and comics about him now online.

After that clip had been released on Wednesday’s night , I had several unanswered questions.
Why the focus on Col. Ahmed Ali !? Earlier this week RSSD claimed that he was dismissed from his position and on the same day this claim was denied. Who really did leak this video and why now ?? It was from Winter 2013 during Morsi’s rule ? Why would RSSD publish this video now jeopardizing the life of its founder and manager Samahy Mostafa who is currently detained as a MB member ??
The question of who leaked the video was answered somehow by the current administration of RSSD that claimed that officers inside in the Morale department “responsible for PR and media in army” leaked the video. The RSSD administrator added that there would be more videos in the way and they were true. Today they posted two other videos.
The first video is about economy where El Sisi was answering some question of an officer in 2 minutes.

El Sisi speaks about economy

We do not know what the question was but from the answer we can guess that El Sisi aka Nasser 2013 is not a socialist but rather a hardcore capitalist. He believes that to build an economy people should pay for the services they get for instance and I will quote him.

If I were the ruler of Egypt , I would make the speaker in the mobile phone pays and the listener pays as well. My son people are all putting the mobile phone handsets on their ears everywhere including polls queues.

The video clips are edited so you can not have a full judgment for what the man said. He also added a remark that would please the public “The army should be the first in paying the services it gets.
I guess the officer asked him about the services they got in the army from mobile phones and the financial facilities.
By the way the true capitalists in Egypt , real capitalists I know from businessmen do not like how the army get involved in economy and so on. It is not a secret that the clash between Gamal Mubarak’s businessmen lobby and the army over the land and projects in Egypt.
Also it is worth to mention that the Muslim brotherhood was supporting capitalism and neoliberalism too during Morsi’s rule !!
Then RSSD released another leak and again it is short and edited to the level we do not know in what context the general was speaking about. The clip was only 0:38 seconds !!

El Sisi ; The police officer and the protesters

Now I had to repeat what he said to understand his answer to officer Ahmed whom I speculate that he was asking about officers and protests. I believe what he said that after what happened “the revolution” the officer will not shoot you and hit you in the eye and that why he will not stand a trial , of course I could be wrong. I just do not get what he said precisely.
RSSD then claimed that it would post more clips in the upcoming hours.
Anyhow it turned out that this secret meeting was not secret after all , it was a meeting with the Chemical warfare officers last December 2012 “During Morsi’s rule”. The meeting was recorded by the Morale department in the army. It is unclear how it was leaked.
Now the MB supporters and members promote those clips as evidence on how El Sisi is bad. The revolutionaries got concerns about the army and media as well the economy , they are also angry for that stupid insult to Egyptian women.
The Pro-military supporters now are repeating the same words when they are confronted with such videos : So what , there is nothing wrong in the video as El Sisi appears to be a wise man and the Muslim brotherhood are actually promoting the guy accidentally. Well those people do not give damn honestly to the status of media in Egypt or how much the parliament is independent from the army in order to do its supervisory role as it should or the economy or anything.
Some people believe that the army and Abdel Fatah El Sisi are actually behind those leaks using RSSD’s stupidity to promote for the general as a president.
Colonel Ahmed Ali’s groupies online say that Colonel Omar is jealous from Ali !!

I do not know why I have the feeling that there is something wrong in mount Olympus for real.I just do not know and I doubt that real human beings understand what is really happening.

8 comments:

In this current political climate, no amount of wrongdoings or leaks from the army will convince pro-army people of the reality of their oppression. Say what you want about the anticoup protesters (yes "anticoup", not all of them are MB), they appear to be the most sensible of the bunch in discerning the language of this junta regime. Even you are able to discern this too Zeinab. The question is, now that you know about this regime's ugly face, what path will you take? Will you be like those who denounce street action because they view it as counter-productive to the "political process"? Or will you, and other like-minded people, return to the street? If you choose the former, you should understand that the "process" is dead. Political figures of all stripes (pro-coup and anti-coup) are being persecuted. The media is controlled by the army. The constitutional committee is controlled by the army. And this new constitution will be more vulgar, repressive, and military-sanctioned than Morsi's, but yet some Egyptians refuse to take to the street against this? For what? Because of partisan grudges? This is ridiculous. If you were able to march alongside military supporters on June 30 to overthrow one form of bad leadership, there should be nothing stopping you from doing it again alongside other people who you disagree with. If you don't, then enjoy the leadership of the great hero Sisi, "the one we can trust".

The phrase "anti-coup protesters" was coined by Gehad El-Haddad and Mohamed Soltan (the son of Saleh Soltan) as they tried to revamp the Rab3a protest and give the sit-in more legitimacy in Western media by distancing it from the Brotherhood and making it sound like a broader, more inclusive coalition backed it up. I'm an anti-coup and anti-brotherhood liberal, and I went to Rab3a three times to check it out, none of the times where I found anybody looking non-brotherhood except from myself, the people I went with, and the random journalist here and there. I.e. the "anti-coup protesters" is a really smart constructed phrase that was successfully transmitted to Western journalists, so that in the end, that was the description they used for brotherhood sit-ins etc.

There were thousands at Rab3a though, and with all fairness Injy I don't think you can judge every single individual's political convictions by them "looking brotherhood" or "looking non-brotherhood". Let's not fall into the traps of stereotyping here. There are plenty of testimonies of protesters who said they are not MB, but rather supporters of restoring the elected president (whether we agree with that or not. Personally I don't want him back).

Now that being said, I don't doubt the majority of them are MB supporters. But I refuse to generalize all of them, especially as I know people who are not even islamists participating in them. And as for the western journalists remarks, if that's your excuse, then the ploy has not worked. Vast majority of western news still refer to these protests as pro-Morsi or MB, not anticoup. So let's not focus too much on that

So we hear now that the interim Govt of Egypt is going to confiscate all the MB assets, money, etc. yet the Mubarak clan gets to keep what they stole during 30 years time? How is this then, better than it was?

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